In a new post to the php|architect blog Giorgio Sironi looks at some of the good development principles that can make your applications better based on some other suggestions from Alberto Gutierrez.

Many of them are really good practices that would help most developers in the long run - after all, the only easy thing about software development is screwing it up. I feel I need to add to several of the observations on his list, both more in more abstract and more specific terms.

He talks about things like decoupling code, testing, metrics, naming conventions (and a shared vocabulary) and the role that automation can play in both your development and deployment.